


amaranth this side of the grave

by BeggarWhoRides



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: Bullying, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Canonical Character Undeath, Character Study, F/F, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Minor Character Death, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-12
Updated: 2016-01-12
Packaged: 2018-05-13 08:48:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5702341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeggarWhoRides/pseuds/BeggarWhoRides
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>I’m not scared,</i> she shouted when she was twelve, loud and brash and lying.</p>
<p><i>I’m not scared,</i> she breathed when she was twenty-one, soft and faltering and lying.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>This is how the story of Danny Lawrence goes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	amaranth this side of the grave

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta'd. Warnings for: descriptions of violence, blood, bullying, and death.

_I’m not scared,_ she shouted when she was twelve, loud and brash and lying.

_I’m not scared,_ she breathed when she was twenty-one, soft and faltering and lying.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is how the story of Danny Lawrence goes.

She was born Daniela in 1994, with no fanfare like a countess of 1698 might get, or the fuss of an overprotective father and a mother who loved and who would leave. Daniela was welcomed into the world with tears and with love and with the summer sun anointing her hair, the summer already claiming her as one of their own.

(Her parents always would wonder where she got that brilliant color, what spark lit that fire that burned inside her, so bright, so hot)

Daniela ran before she walked, and shouted before she spoke, and even at barely over a meter tall, seemed too big for the sleepy German town her parents loved. She ran barefoot and the forest seemed to bend around her, she climbed trees whose branches seemed to shift to support her, and hid herself in pine branches while deer passed by.

Daniela had classmates, who looked at her sideways when she came from the woods with mud and sticks clinging to her, had teachers who never quite understood the itch that always crawled beneath her skin, and parents who loved but could never quite understand why she couldn’t just _sit still._ Why she couldn’t just _not cause a fuss_ when she overheard someone insulting someone else, or when something didn’t seem fair to the young girl’s mind. She grew tall and she hunched over, her hair shone copper and she cut it short, but she could not stop the blaze in her eyes and the fierceness of her voice as she shouted that it wasn’t _right,_ that this was _wrong._

And she couldn’t stop herself from overhearing her classmates whisper, and she couldn’t stop clutching at the hem of her saffron dress and wondering why.

And then she was twelve, and then she became _Danny._

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------

She could’ve walked away. Her classmates would’ve, her parents would have told her to, and she most likely should have.

After all, she was twelve, and those other girls were much older, and Daniela was tall but those girls were _strong,_ and they had each other and Daniela was alone.

But in the center of the ring of girls was another girl, and she was on the ground and crying and begging them to stop, and Daniela felt that dull hot roar inside her. 

“Aww,” one of the big girls cooed, flicking ash off the end of a cigarette, “have you learned--”

“Stoppit!”

The other girls stopped and turned as one. Daniela threw her shoulders back and thrust out her chest, and clenched her fists to stop them from shaking.

“Who the hell are you?”

“I’m--I’m gonna kick your butts, that’s who I am.”

The girl in front of the others sputtered with laughter, and the others joined in. The girl on the ground was the only one who didn’t, still choking on her own tears.

“Go home, kid--”

“I’m not going anywhere, and _you’re not being nice.”_

“Look at her, she’s scared stiff,” one of them shouted, “how old are you, ten?”

The other girls laughed, pointing and rolling their eyes, but the girl on the ground looked so terrified and so small, and Daniela took a step forward and made her voice be strong and she shouted.

_“I’m not scared!”_ They all stared at her again, and this time Daniela crossed her arms and stared them right back. “I’m not scared of any of you,” she lied.

The girl on the ground sniffled, and she hugged herself, but she looked at Daniela and smiled a tiny, tiny smile, and Daniela felt _big._

“Well,” said the girl in charge, stepping forward, and the other girls followed. “Let’s see if we can’t fix that.”

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------

“What’s your name, sweetheart?” the ER nurse asked as he plastered her broken arm. She bit her lip to stop herself from squeaking in pain, eyes darting to anything but him. “I’d like to call your mom or dad for you, honey, but I can’t do that if I don’t know your name.”

She could already hear her parents, _Daniela, what have you done now, you can’t go picking fights, Daniela! I don’t care if it was the right thing to do, we don’t want you getting hurt! We love you and this is for your own good._ She shook her head, a short, tight movement, and the nurse sighed.

“You know, the girl who called the ambulance said that you’d taken on a group of bullies. That’s pretty brave, especially for a kid like you.” She shifted a little in her seat, a little proud despite herself, and the nurse grinned. “Bet you’ve got a big, strong name, don’t you?”

She didn’t-- _Daniela_ rolled off the tongue, all soft sounds and gentle vowels rolled together, the sort of name that felt mushy in her mouth. 

But she was _pretty brave,_ the nurse had said--and she had been, hadn’t she? Didn’t she earn a strong name now--a name that would make her feel big, a name that would make her feel brave enough to do what was right? 

“Danny,” she said, the _a_ hard and the _n’s_ harsh, and she grinned. “I’m Danny Lawrence.”

“What a strong name,” the nurse said, and she nodded, flexing the fingers on her uninjured arm.

Her parents rushed in thirty minutes later, and they were full of sympathetic cooes and scolding words, patting her hair and saying _what were you doing out there, Daniela? What were you thinking? What have we said to you about messing with bigger girls?_

“I want to learn to fight!” she said, wriggling out from underneath her mother’s too-tight embrace. Her mother’s face flickered in confusion.

“So you can protect yourself next time?”

Danny shook her head, her arm in a sling and her arms and lip bruised and her eyes torch-bright. “So next time I can _win.”_

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Danny was nineteen when she turned her back on the tiny town she was born and raised in, carrying a suitcase and a backpack and the weight of her parents’ worries.

She could hear them in the back of her mind (and on the messages on her phone), _Daniela, we understand, but can’t you stay here--there are good jobs here, and good people. What is the point of you studying so far away if all you’re going to study is literature? What jobs are there in that? When are you going to settle down and stop using that silly name you’ve chosen and why can’t you just settle down here?_ and always in the same tone of voice used for _we understand what a lesbian is, darling, and we’re fine with it, but do you have to be so open about it? Have you tried dating a nice boy?_

And she could, is the truth. She could stay in this little town, and she could work at the library or the florist’s like her mother or her father. She could marry Elena--she could even love Elena if she tried, the dark-haired girl who had a sweet-tasting mouth and a wicked tongue--she could grow old here. 

She could.

But she _can’t,_ there’s a burning under her skin that’s been there for as long as she can remember, a whisper that says _run,_ that says _fight,_ that says _make it right,_ and she can’t quiet it here, and maybe she can’t quiet it anywhere, but maybe Silas University was a place to start.

And when she stepped onto the campus and stared out into the forests that seemed to hum with life and with something more, something terrifying and old and that made something terrifying and old stir inside of her, she felt like she had made the right decision.

“Are you new here?” a woman asked, mahogany eyes warm beneath untidy brown hair. 

“Yeah, I’m Danny. Danny Lawrence.”

“Danny Lawrence,” the woman--a senior? She couldn’t have been much older, no matter how old her presence felt--repeated, smiling. “May I?”

Danny nodded, and the woman reached out, her fingertips brushing the ends of Danny’s bright hair, still cut so it ended at her jawline. The woman’s eyes lit up with something like recognition.

“The Lady has touched you, I think,” she said, and at Danny’s confused look, just grinned. “Has anyone told you about the Summer Society yet?”

And when Danny walked into the warm house with crackling fireplaces, and bows and arrows on the walls, and a strangely friendly-seeming deer head over the doorway, she started to feel like she was home.

The sister who’d led her in, who’d had a presence so ancient and a face so young, was named Frieda, and she was killed three weeks into the semester. Danny stood at the back of the crowds of sisters with the other new girls, too far to hear the words or see the pyre, just to hear the echos of the songs and watch the smoke reaching into the sky.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------

She took to the training like a spark to kindling, loving every bruise and ache and cheering out loud when she felt the first true calluses form on her fingers, and the next thing she knows she’s one of the older sisters, in her second year, and watching the new freshmen stream onto campus, a little lost, a little small. She walks up to some of them, her bow and quiver slung over her back, and gestures to those little things like a smattering of freckles, a wild curl of hair, and tells them, _you know, I think The Lady has touched you. Have you checked out the Summer Society yet?_

She rubs people the wrong way, and she is maybe a bit too eager to cast aside some traditions for what she knows is right, but she is strong and she is a sister, so they listen. They roll their eyes, and they mutter, but she holds her head high and they do listen, even when she is saying that she doesn’t care that Yuuki is the newest and youngest and weakest sister, she fought bravely and worked hard in training and she should get an earlier pick of food instead of being left for last.

“You’re really making some people unhappy, Lawrence,” Keeva, her roommate of two years, warned that night. They sat on their beds and sharpened their stakes, preparing for their night patrols. “I agree with you, sure, but there are a lot of people who think those traditions are there for a reason.”

“Yuuki’s too quiet for her own good--she needs someone to look out for her. That’s all that really matters.”

Keeva shook her head, rolling her eyes at Danny in a way that should feel chastising but, from her sister, just feels exasperated. Keeva has always struggled to fit in with the Sisters, her elfin-delicate features--ringlets of curls and constellations of freckles--seeming at odds with the comfortable way her hands rested on the knife as she hacked at the wood. She and Danny had found each other early in freshman year, and even if the friendship between the sprite and the amazon looked strange to everyone else, it was something they both held dear.

“You know that stupid moral code and protective streak is gonna get you in a lot of trouble, right?”

“Well that’s why you’re here. You’re gonna look out for me, right?”

“Till the end of time,” Keeva laughs, dropping the last of the stakes into the duffel bag and slinging it over her shoulder. “The little cubs are going on this patrol with us, right?”

Danny sighed, thinking of all the freshman girls with barely three months of training. “Despite how much I objected, yes.”

“They’ll be alright. You know we need to go on this hunt--”

“Yeah, the reminder of what happened in ‘05 when the Summers didn’t get into the woods in time. Our job to keep the rest of campus ignorant and safe, right?”

“And to make sure the evil in the forest stays there.” Keeva smiled, small in the now sober mood, and reached out to squeeze Danny’s bicep. “Perfect job for you and your stupid idealistic morals, right?”

“Oh, shut up,” Danny laughed, grabbing her quiver, and they leave the room together.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Danny found Yuuki.

The cubs--the freshmen who seemed so damn small next to all the other Sisters--had gotten themselves separated from the rest of the patrol somehow, and half the Sisters ran off to finish the mission while the others tried to round up the freshmen before someone got hurt.

Too late, apparently.

“Danny…?”

“Yeah,” Danny replied, dropping her weapons and dropping to her knees, gently cradling the girl’s head in her lap. “That’s me, cub. I’m here.” 

“I…” Yuuki sputtered as she searched for a breath, staring at the bloody hole in her shirt, at the red spreading over the green, green grass. “I’m not gonna...I’m gonna die, aren’t I?”

Danny shrugged off her jacket and spread it over Yuuki’s midsection, not applying pressure or calling for help, just blocking the girl’s view. One of the very first thing they’d been taught in the Society was how to recognize when help was needed, and when help was just going to cause unnecessary pain.

“I…” Yuuki struggled to swallow, tears springing into her hazel eyes. “I’m s-scared, Danny.”

“Yeah?” Danny asked, running her thumb along Yuuki’s cheek. “Wanna know a secret?” 

Yuuki nodded, barely moving, and Danny leaned in like she didn’t want anyone else to hear, forcing herself to smile brightly.

“I’m not. It’s okay if you’re scared, it’s okay to be scared,” she added quickly, focusing on the young girl’s face instead of the sticky feeling of blood soaking into her jeans. “But I’m not scared. I’m not even worried about you. You wanna know why?”

Yuuki nodded, sniffling, and Danny pretended not to see the tears.

“Because our sisters--your sisters--they’re waiting for you. They’ll take good care of you. I promise.”

“But I messed up,” Yuuki whispered, chest heaving with the effort of speaking, “I messed up, I f-failed--”

“Hey, hey,” Danny hushed her, reaching up with her free hand to stroke Yuuki’s hair, her other hand still on Yuuki’s cheek. “You didn’t. I promise you didn’t.”

_I failed,_ Danny thought, and bit her lip to keep from saying aloud. _I didn’t find you in time, I can’t fix this, I didn’t stop them from sending you._

_I failed you._

“Where are your wounds?” Danny teased, trying to keep the tears out of her voice. “C’mon Yuuki, where are your wounds?”

“My front,” Yuuki breathed, her legs and arms going limp. Danny shifted her grip to stop Yuuki from slipping out of her lap, holding the too-small girl against her.

“That’s right,” Danny encouraged, “Your front. You died with your wounds on your front. They’re all going to be proud of you.”

“Pr...o…”

“Yeah. They’re gonna be proud.”

Yuuki’s breath began to rattle in her chest and Danny started to reach for the jacket to pull it more snugly over her when Yuuki’s hand shot out. She grabbed Danny’s wrist almost too tightly, grip steady despite her quickly fading breaths.

“It’s okay,” Danny soothed quickly, abandoning the jacket to cradle Yuuki against her chest. “It’s okay, it’s okay, you’re gonna be okay. You’re gonna be fine. I’m right here. I’m right here.”

Yuuki sighed, long and rough, and went limp, her head lolling back. Danny leaned back, pulling her closer, some stupid part of her worrying about Yuuki getting a crick in her neck before she remembered that Yuuki wasn’t going to get hurt or sore anymore--she wasn’t going to feel anything anymore.

And in that moment, Danny didn’t want to feel anything either.

“I’m right here, Yuuki, I’m right here.” She ran her fingers through Yuuki’s hair, pressing a kiss to the girl’s still-warm forehead. “Don’t be scared, sweetheart, I’m right here. I’m right here.”

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Keeva found Danny.

The patrol had taken Yuuki back to the house, Danny’s jacket wrapped around her midsection, but Danny didn’t go with them. She borrowed a battleaxe from one of the girls and strode straight into the forest, head held high, and that’s how Keeva found her, hacking at an ancient cypress with sweat dripping off of her.

“You shouldn’t be out here alone.”

Danny just shook her head, driving the axe into the tree’s trunk again. 

“We won,” Keeva added, her voice neutral. “The campus is safe. The students of Silas are sleeping safe tonight.”

“We won,” Danny repeated, bitterness oozing from the words. “We _won.”_

Keeva blinked, undeterred. “Can you say we didn’t?”

Danny _can’t,_ and that more than anything makes her slam the axe into the tree hard enough to make it shake, the old wood groaning and the branches crashing to the ground. Keeva took a half step back, the first signs of fear, and Danny dropped the axe and stepped back.

“Danny…”

“Tell me if it’s worth it,” Danny whispered, eyes squeezed painfully shut. “Tell me if this--if all this fighting, if all the-the _dying_ for one chance--for one stupid, measly chance to rid the world of evil. For one more battle when we know we’ll never win the war. Tell me if it’s worth it because _I don’t know anymore.”_

“Yes, you do.” Keeva stepped forward, slow and with her hands spread wide. “You do.”

“I _don’t--”_

“Lawrence.” Keeva cut her off, folding her arms over her chest. “We both know that if you thought--if you believed that you weren’t doing the right thing, you’d be gone. You’d be fighting the good fight wherever you thought it was.” She gestured toward the axe and the branches on the ground. “You’re cutting wood for Yuuki’s pyre.”

“I--” Danny shook her head, the words stucking and choking. “I don’t want to believe it anymore. I don’t _want_ to, I--I…”

“But you do.”

Danny pressed the back of her hand to her mouth, took a breath to center herself, and suddenly she was sobbing, and Keeva was there, holding onto her, grounding her, and Danny was just wanted to stop crying.

“She _died._ In my arms. I was holding her, I had her, she…”

“I know, babe, I know. I’m sorry.”

“She _died in my arms.”_ Danny bent forward, hugging herself, and Keeva reached up and wrapped her arms around her.

“So use your arms,” Keeva whispered back, holding onto Danny hard and as fierce as her voice was. “Use your arms, and make a world where nobody else will die in them.”

They stayed like that for a long, long time, long enough that the night slowly began to creep back and then Keeva pulled away, squeezing Danny’s bicep for one last moment as she stepped away. 

Without a word, she picked up an axe Danny hadn’t noticed she’d brought with her, and began to chop the wood into logs more appropriate for a pyre.

After a long moment, Danny joined her.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Danny didn’t find Keeva.

Danny didn’t even know it was Keeva, only that one of their sisters had fallen, and she didn’t know it was Keeva until they carried her into the common room of the house.

And she didn’t know she was screaming until the carpet hit her knees.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------

“But Daniela--”

“Mom, I am _not_ doing this, okay?” Danny whirled around to face her mother, suitcase in one hand and the other raised in frustration. “God, I _knew_ coming home was a mistake.”

_“Daniela--”_

“Every time, Mom!” she shouted back, “Every time, I come home and you oh-so-kindly remind me that I’m never going to get a job! That Summer Society is dangerous, that you’re spending so much money, that so-and-so is looking for someone to work in their store and you can put in a good word. And every time, I say no. And I leave. Do we have to do it again?”

Danny’s mother sighed, reaching up to fuss with Danny’s braid, the hair having grown out long since freshman year. “It would be so much _easier_ for you--”

Danny startled herself with a disbelieving laugh. “You think I don’t know that? You think that I don’t know how simple it would be, how smooth and effortless and long my life could be? How much less it would _hurt?”_

“Oh, Daniela--”

“I don’t do this because it’s easy.” Danny’s hand shifted on her suitcase handle, itching for her bow and arrow. “I do it--I do it because I _have_ to. Because I can’t _not._ Because it--despite everything, it’s _right._ It’s--”

Something in her mother’s eyes made Danny’s voice falter. “What?”

“Where did you come from, Daniela?”

Danny scoffed, rolling her eyes. “This town? From you and Dad--”

“No.” Her mother was shaking her head, looking surprised and sad at the same time. Danny frowned, but before she could say anything more, her mom continued. “No, Daniela, I would be so proud to say I gave you my spark--but your father and I, we are nothing but leaves on the wind. You…” Her mother shook her head, words dying for a moment before she started again. _“Meine Blume,_ you are an inferno and it scares me to death.”

“Mom--”

“I don’t understand you.” Her mother reached out and ran a hand down Danny’s arm, eyes wet but tears not falling. “You are nothing like I’ve ever seen, loud and uncontrollable and a child of the wildlands, and it’s not something I will ever understand. But I love you, and you are my daughter, you will always be my daughter. I love you,” she repeated, reaching up to cup Danny’s cheeks--and how long has she had to reach up? How long had her mother been so small?--and used her thumbs to wipe away tears Danny hadn’t noticed. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” Danny whispered, dropping her suitcase and wrapping her hands around her mother’s fragile wrists. “I love you too.”

“Come back sometimes,” her mother said, her mother whispered, doing her best to smile. “That’s all we ask. Come back to us sometimes.”

“Okay,” Danny promised, folding herself into her mother’s embrace. “Okay.”

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------

On the first day of being a teaching assistant, a girl listed in the roster as Hollis, Laura waltzed in, made a Buffy the Vampire Slayer reference when going over the summary of Beowulf, and proceeded to stay afterward and argue that they really shouldn’t have to read Goethe’s Faust this semester.

Somewhere between Laura’s third and fifth point about how problematic the portrayal of Margaret/Gretchen is and how, exactly, the issue needs to be covered to account for it when Danny realized she was grinning like she hadn’t done in years, and thought _oh, fuck._

It didn’t stop her from falling, and falling _hard._

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Laura didn’t fall--not for her, not really.

Danny realized it earlier than she admitted it, clinging to their little inside jokes and the times Laura invited her up to the dorm and all those times Laura swore she was going to kill Carmilla and ignoring the way Laura’s eyes always lingered on Carmilla and the way Carmilla always seemed to be on Laura’s mind.

She does feel vindicated when it turns out Carmilla is a vampire after all--she can hate the stupid, leather-wearing, disrespectful, pretentious, _dangerous_ woman then.

She can.

But she doesn’t.

She tries and she tries--and she gets close sometimes, when she sees Laura hurt because of the vampire, when everything starts to fall apart and it’s very obliquely Carmilla’s fault.

But she and Carmilla are the same in too many ways, two girls who are too young and have seen too much of how terrible the world can be, and are both trying to stop the darkness from touching Laura’s light.

And they are both too willing to lay down their lives for that.

“I think we’re meant to be filming our soppy heartfelt goodbyes or something.”

“Screw that.”

“Good call.” They looked at each other, somehow having gone from soldiers on opposite sides to soldiers marching shoulder-to-shoulder, for once seeing eye-to-eye. 

If they were more like Laura, maybe they would’ve tried to say something to each other--to mend broken bridges, or maybe build bridges in the first place, or at least say _I won’t mind if I die fighting at your side._

But they are not Laura.

“See you at the violence,” said Carmilla, and it was enough.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Carmilla fell.

She jumped, to be technical, into the pit of light most terrible and Danny watched, and Laura screamed, and Danny ran forward and held her back from the edge. All around them her Sisters were fighting, and the girls and Laf and Kirsch were waking up and demanding to know what was going on and the ghosts were screaming, but Danny ignored them all, falling to her knees with her arms wrapped around Laura.

“No, no, _no…”_ she half-screamed, half-moaned, twisting and kicking and reaching for the pit, her elbow flying back and catching Danny in the face, hard. “Carmilla, _Carmilla!”_

“I’m sorry,” Danny whispered into Laura’s hair, almost inaudible in the chaos around them. “Laura, I’m sorry, I’m _so_ sorry--”

“Lawrence!” the Sisters were still fighting the vampires--and how had nobody noticed _so many vampires_ at this school--”We need you!”

“I’m sorry,” Danny murmured one last time, and then she lifted Laura up and away from the crater, ignoring the wordless, enraged scream that tore it’s way out of Laura’s tiny, tiny body. 

“Danny, let me go, _let me go!”_

“I can’t, Laura.” Her voice was rough around the edges, and there were hot tears in her eyes, but there were things that needed to be done, and people who needed to be saved, and she knew that whatever she was feeling, it didn’t compare to Laura’s raw grief. “I can’t.”

She pushed Laura into Perry and LaFontaine, not waiting to explain or to deal with their emotions on top of everything else.

“You take care of her,” she ordered, letting all of her grief and her anger and the hundred and one conflicting emotions she didn’t have time to name coalesce around her heart like gasoline.

And then she thought of Keeva, and no more, and dropped a match into her chest.

Her scream was almost-- _almost_ \--comparable to Laura’s as she flung herself back into the fray.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Danny found Carmilla.

Kirsch found Carmilla first, the Zetas doing whatever irrational and dangerous thing the Zetas were doing at the Lustig, but he came to her instead of anything else.

“Uh, Danny?” he said, slow and cautious, and it was the fact that he was using her name more than anything that made Danny freeze. 

“What?”

“Um, so the bros and I were at the Lustig, and we thought hey, we should do something to like, commemorate what happened, but something happy, and _awesome,_ because enough bad stuff happened there, and--”

“Kirsch,” she snapped, so tired. “Just--just get to the point.”

“We saw a body,” he said, the words forced out of his mouth, and Danny felt her stomach drop. Kirsch never looked more like a puppy in that moment, like he desperately wished he wasn’t telling her this. “We saw a body, and it looks like a girl’s.” He shrugged, trying to hunch in on himself. “I didn’t--I didn’t know if I should tell Laura--”

“No,” Danny told him, crossing over and laying her hand on his shoulder and shoving down whatever feelings were rising in her throat. “It’s okay, Kirsch. I get it. You did the right thing coming to get me.”

“Should we tell Laura, or…?” He glances up at her, desperate for instructions, and Danny just shakes her head.

“Let’s see what we’re dealing with first. It might not even be--” she can’t say the name, so she talks around it instead. “Some of the other vamps were female too. And there...there are a couple Summers who still haven’t checked in. There’s no point in...she doesn’t need to get dragged back into this before we know what we’re dealing with.”

“Yeah, yeah, of course,” Kirsch replied, all too bright and eager. “I can rustle up the bros, get the climbing equipment together--”

“That’s okay,” Danny cut him off quickly. “I’ll go.”

“Just you?”

Danny nodded, unsure of how to put words to the need to do this--to come face to face with another person she’d failed to protect, to remind herself of what she was fighting for, to protect Laura from whatever fresh hurt this had the potential to bring her.

Or maybe it was guilt and penance and desperation for redemption all twisted up inside her, because on some level she knew that it was going to be Carmilla on the crater floor, and even if she’d never _liked_ Carmilla it was all because of righteousness and petty jealousy. And what did it say about her, that she let that get in the way until it was too late?

The trek to the Lustig was nowhere near long enough for all those feelings and thoughts to resolve themselves into anything near-understandable, so when she made it to the crater Danny pushed them all to the side as she rappelled down.

At least she tried, but when her flashlight revealed leather pants, some last bit of hope she was holding onto vanished, and all she could think was _oh._

And then came the relief.

Maybe it would give Laura some closure if she could see Carmilla’s body, if she could rub sweet oils into her skin and braid flowers into her hair the way Danny had done for Keeva just over a year ago (so long ago).

Maybe it would give Danny some closure.

Maybe it would give Carmilla some peace.

_God,_ Carmilla and Laura both deserved their closure and peace.

“Danny?” Perry’s voice was unexpected enough that it took Danny a few seconds to place it. “I saw Kirsch, and he said you’d come here--what are you doing down there?”

“It’s--it’s Carmilla,” she said, too tired to try and hide the emotion in her voice. “I found Carmilla.”

“Oh,” Perry’s voice sounded strangely stiff. _“Oh.”_

“Yeah,” Danny half-laughed, some stupid part of her wanting to reach out and smooth Carmilla’s tangled hair, or rearrange her splayed limbs into something that at least looked comfortable. It didn’t feel right for her to be left here, at the bottom of a cavern at the end of a series of caves, beneath a building that was now half-collapsed.

Of course the stupid, undead vamp would die in the most inconvenient place possible.

_Undead vamp._

“Perry,” she shouted, a spark of possibility warming her for the first time in nearly a week. _“Perry!_ I think she could still be alive!”

_I think I can save her._

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------

For all she remembered about saving Carmilla, Danny didn’t remember killing Mattie at all.

She remembered pain, pain like nothing she’d felt crackling up her side, and pain like nothing she’d felt since when Keeva fell like a massive hollow inside of her and she remembered--

Oh _Goddess,_ she remembered finding her eight sisters--those eight girls--the only ones she had left, the ones she’d promised to protect no matter what, the ones with eyes so bright and who chose to love Danny when the rest had turned their backs. There was Ludmilla, who wanted to be a teacher, and Aleah, who loved sparring like nothing else, Vita who wanted to see the world, Kendra, who’d just gotten the strength to leave her abusive girlfriend, and sweet Jenna, and Sarah the fighter, and the twins Miranda and Celia, their hands wrapped tight around each other’s.

Like lambs to the slaughter.

She remembered them laying on the forest floor, fallen where they’d stood, as if they’d turned and died in a moment, as if whoever’d killed them hadn’t even given them the chance to fight back but had wanted to see the terror in their eyes. 

The only sisters she’d had left, dead at her feet.

She’d tried--she’d _tried_ to save them, running from sister to sister, body to body, trying to find a pulse, to put the blood where it belonged, to apologize and apologize and apologize, but there was no one who could hear but herself.

And that’s when she’d gone after Mattie.

Maybe she’d regret it later--maybe she should’ve regretted it the instant the light flashed through the room and Mattie had fallen into Carmilla’s arms, maybe that’s what a good person would’ve felt, but maybe Danny didn’t have the strength left to mourn a murderer.

Maybe she wouldn’t ever regret killing a murderer. 

Laura wouldn’t have done it, but that was the point, wasn’t it? Laura was too good, and too pure, and she didn’t _understand,_ because Laura ran. Of course Laura had run, and of course Danny couldn’t even resent her for it--because Carmilla had come back from the dead (again), and the Dean was dead, and everything had gone straight to hell, and Laura and Carmilla and LaFontaine and Perry had disappeared practically overnight.

But Danny had stayed.

Danny had stayed, and fought, and tried to hold the broken campus together, and watched her sisters fall, and innocent students fall, and her sisters turn their backs on her. She’d carried bleeding students through blizzards, and made bandages from whatever fabric had been around, and when she wasn’t on watch, she’d curled up under her blankets in the room she’d once shared with Keeva to check Laura’s tweets. To check that Laura and her friends were still alive.

(If she’d sometimes checked Carmilla’s twitter, that was her business and hers alone)

Danny had stayed, and Danny had tried so hard, and she was _alone,_ because Carmilla hated her the way she hated Mattie, and Laura would choose Carmilla, every time and no matter what, and the only sisters she had left were gutted in the woods, and she _hurt._ She hurt so much that there was no other way to describe it but _hurt,_ and Goddess, there had to be some scrap of justice in this forsaken campus, in this world she’d tried so hard to fix and that just kept breaking her in return.

And despite it all, she meant every word she’d said to Laura.

It _was_ worth it.

Laura was worth it.

Not just because of how much she loved the tiny, beautiful girl (and she did, she did). Laura had a way of inspiring, of rallying the people when there should have been no hope left in the world, of inspiring people to do _just a little more._

When Danny fought, it was because it was right. But when Danny fought for Laura, she believed that they could _win._

The world needed Laura Hollis more than it would ever need Danny Lawrence.

But Danny loved the world with a passion that burned enough to hurt, and she was going to try _damn_ hard to save it anyway.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is the way the story of Danny Lawrence went.

She fought, and she fought, and she fought. Mid-battle, with Zetas and Summers alike at her side, the realization that _we might not make it out alive_ hit her like an icy knife in the back and she fell back, just for a few moments, to try and put what meager affairs she had in order.

She didn’t post the tweets at the last second. Maybe she wouldn’t need to. 

Someone else would for her, in any case.

_There’s a spark left for all of us,_ she wrote, and she burned with how much she believed it.

Screw prophecies and ancient powers. They were human, but they were strong, and they could save themselves.

They _would_ save themselves.

And then an icy knife hit her in the back.

Danny took her last breaths in Laura’s arms, reminding her that it was worth it, that _Laura_ was worth it.

“I’m not scared,” she lied, the barest breath of air, because Laura looked so shattered and Danny couldn’t fight anymore, couldn’t raise a shield, but she could comfort, even as she felt herself flicker and fade. “I’m not scared.”

Laura heard her, Laura nodded the tinest bit, and it was enough.

“I’m not…”

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------

(Mel was surprised by how light Danny was.

Not that the woman was _light,_ the damn Amazon was almost six feet tall and every inch of it was muscle, but there had always been something about Danny that’d felt distant, larger than life. Something extra that made her something more than the rest of them, and it’d pissed Mel off like nothing else--because who did the stupid Ginger think she was, always preaching about ‘making a better world’ and ‘being willing to die for the cause’? Like she was a godamn chosen martyr?

She was a martyr now.

But untouchable. Danny Lawrence had always seemed untouchable, even when she was sparring and arguing and pissing everyone the hell off, and now Mel was cradling Danny in her arms, cooling blood soaking into her shirt.

She kept waiting to feel a heartbeat, to hear a breath.

And she’d never even liked Danny, so why was she crying?

They walked through the campus-- _Mel_ walked, Danny was gone--and it was silent, the students and sisters and even some Zetas staring, and some of them sobbing. 

There were whispers about Danny, of course, they called her martyr, but they also called her Icarus, a foolish girl flying too close to something that would destroy her, and that was right but it wasn’t. 

Danny had flown and reached and fought for something, yes, but Icarus had been reaching for the sun and fallen; Danny had the sun inside her chest all along, blazing through her veins and screaming through her heart, making her _so much more_ \--but she had been _so_ human, and her heart pumped blood instead of ichor and of course, of _course_ she would fall.

Of course it would burn her up.

Mel had seen it from the start.

She just hadn’t expected seeing it to hurt so much)

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------

She died with the name she’d chosen, among the family she’d fought for, the sun beating down surprisingly bright for a May day, as if summer had chosen to make an appearance for this and only this.

Her sisters annointed her skins with sweet oils, and laid her on a bed of cypress logs with asphodel and amaranth in her hands, and all the fanfare they could afford with Vordenberg’s men just outside.

They reclaimed her as one of their own.

~~And as dawn shattered the sky, they touched a torch to the pyre, and the fire burned hotter and brighter than anything, as if welcoming her home.~~

~~This is how the story of Danny Lawrence ends.~~

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is how the story continues.

With ancient words and ancient hate, and ice running through her veins, and a cold, dead thing where a heart should’ve been.

“Oh, Daniela, you’ll do _so_ nicely.”

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Walter Savage Landor's "Aesop and Rhodopè." Amaranth is a tall red flower that is shortlived, but represents immortality.
> 
> There are a bunch of references to Artemis's followers scattered throughout, kudos to you if you find them!
> 
> Comments are always welcomed and criticism is definitely encouraged--this was written way back in the wake of ep 35, so forgive any emotion-induced error :) I'm on tumblr at probablytatiana if that's more your style.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! <3

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] amaranth this side of the grave](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8025295) by [Shmaylor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shmaylor/pseuds/Shmaylor)




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